Public pay: What will unions do next?

As this year's TUC conference draws to a close, counter-intuitively the government has forged a high degree of unity within the union movement.
Expectations on the lifting of the pay cap were raised, then dashed, when the awards to police officers were above the pay cap but palpably below inflation. The unions feel they are winning the argument on pay after seven years of restraint.
But there is less unity over how to respond if the government fails to use its new flexibility to award bigger increases next year or if any increases come at the expense of existing departmental budgets rather... read more

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